When the old man had finished his tale, O'Donell and Delancy thanked him for the relation, adding at the same time that they had never heard anything half so wonderful. Then as it was very late, they all retired to rest. Next morning O'Donell awoke very early and, looking round the cave, he perceived the bed of leaves on which the old man had lain to be empty. He went out of the cave. The sky was covered with the rising red fiery clouds except those in the east whose edges were tinged with the bright rays of the morning sun, as they strove to hide its glory with their dark veil of vapours, now all beauty and radiance by the golden line of light which streaked their gloomy surface. Beneath this storm-portending sky and far off to the westward rose two tremendous rocks whose summits were enveloped with black clouds rolling one above another with an awful magnificence well suited to the land of wilderness and mountain which they canopied. Gliding along in the air between these two rocks was a chariot of light and in the chariot sat a figure, the expression of whose countenance was that of the old man armed with the majesty and might of a spirit. O'Donell stood at the mouth of the cave watching it till it vanished and then calling Delancy he related the circumstance to him. [8] Some years after this, Alexander went out one morning in search of the fruit on which they subsisted. Noon came and he had not returned, evening and still no tidings of him. O'Donell began to be alarmed and set out in search of him but could nowhere find him. One whole day he spent in wandering about the rocks and mountains and in the evening he came back to his cave weary and faint with hunger and thirst. Days, weeks, months passed away and no Delancy appeared. O'Donell might now be said to be truly miserable. He would sit on a rock for hours together and cry out "Alexander, Alexander," but receive no answer, except the distant echoing of his voice among the rocks. Sometimes he fancied it was another person answering him and he would listen earnestly till it died away. Then sinking into utter despair again, he would sit till the dews of night began to fall, when he would retire to his cave to pass the night in unquiet broken slumbers or in thinking of his beloved commander, whom he could never see more. In one of these dreadful intervals, he took up a small parcel and opening it he saw lying before him two locks of soft curly hair shining like burnished gold. He gazed on them for a little and thought of the words of those who gave them to him--"Take this then, that you may remember us when you dwell with only the wild beast of the desert and the great eagle of the mountain." He burst into a flood of tears, he wrung his hands in sorrow, and in the anguish of the moment he wished that he could once more see them and the mighty Warrior King their father if it cost him his life. Just at that instant, a loud clap of thunder shook the roof